David A. Waldman

Because research on responsible leadership has grown significantly in recent years, we conducted a systematic review of research on responsible leadership. Our overall goal was to establish a comprehensive understanding of alternative definitions of responsible leadership, its theoretical foundations, and distinctions from other moral leadership constructs. Drawing from 194 studies, we first clarify the conceptual underpinnings of responsible leadership, and how it differs from other constructs in the moral leadership domain, thus highlighting its value as a construct. Second, we identify and evaluate the prominent theoretical frameworks that underpin responsible leadership. Third, we conceptualize the antecedents, mediating factors, contingency variables and outcomes of responsible leadership. Fourth, we offer important recommendations for future research that will move the field forward. Overall, our review provides insights to advance an understanding of responsible leadership.

This special issue of Personnel Psychology is devoted to micro‐based research on entrepreneurship, an emerging field that heretofore has been highly influenced by scholars in economics, strategy, and sociology. A theme of this special issue is that to further advance research on entrepreneurship, we need to develop a greater understanding of the role of individuals and teams in entrepreneurial activity from an OB/HR perspective. Accordingly, the goals of our overview article are twofold. First, we summarize the articles in the special issue, which address a number of important micro topics, including HRM practices in the entrepreneurial firm, leadership, identity, teams, well‐being, diversity/equity/inclusion, and careers and hiring. These articles are based on a variety of research methods and data sources from multiple nations. Second, we identify additional important topics for OB/HR scholars who are interested in conducting research on entrepreneurship. They include a global perspective, the bright versus dark side of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship and STEM workers, and genetic and biological determinants. We conclude with a consideration of methodological and research design issues.

Responsibility is an important issue in organizations and society. Employees, managers, and owners can behave responsibly in the workplace and beyond. In addition, these individuals can be influenced by the propensity of the organization to behave responsibly. Organizations can pursue strategies that take into account responsibility at the product, firm, industry, and societal levels. This virtual special issue examines 19 articles published in Organization Science that consider responsibility at multiple levels of analysis. An important theme that emerges is that although some studies have crossed levels of analysis, future research would benefit from cross-level or more meso-based approaches.

Responsible leadership is a concept that can help link corporate social responsibility and performance to actions on the part of policy makers and leaders. It may also help to provide a better understanding of the deteriorating reputations of firms and their leaders as perceived by society as a whole and of what might be required from leaders to strengthen the bonds with society. However, the precise manner in which leaders interpret and actually display responsibility is not altogether clear. This lack of clarity coincides with the varying perspectives of responsible leadership that occur in the literature, and it may contribute to the lack of systematic research on how such leadership may ultimately affect firm- and societal-level outcomes. Based on a qualitative analysis of 25 business leaders and entrepreneurs, we identify four orientations that leaders may use to demonstrate responsibility and implement corporate social responsibility. We show how these orientations vary according to the breadth of constituent group focus and the degree of accountability toward others. Further, we discuss both research and training implications associated with the different responsible leader orientations.

Theory on the impact of ethical leadership has traditionally been based on a deontological approach to morality. Underlying this perspective is the assumption that all leader behaviors that encourage “normatively appropriate conduct” will influence followers in a similar fashion. Put differently, the current consensus seems to suggest that actions that focus on preventing unethical behavior—attending to “the wrong”—will have the same impact as actions that focus on promoting ethical behavior—attending to “the right.” Taking a within‐person approach, we draw upon social exchange theory to challenge this consensus and build theory that suggests a follower's felt trust from their leader will be differentially impacted by prevention‐ versus promotion‐focused ethical leadership. We also explore how these different types of ethical leadership may indirectly, through felt trust, impact citizenship behavior and counterproductive work behavior. Finally, we consider how the role of the “moral manager” may interact with the “moral person” by identifying leader moral hypocrisy as an important between‐person moderator of these effects. Given the importance of ethical decision‐making in organizations and the calls for increased ethical leadership, our findings have important implications for both theory and practice.

We renew an exchange of letters from 2008 regarding the meaning of responsible leadership, which applies to senior executives of firms as they attempt to engage in corporate social responsibility. An interesting aspect to this discussion is that, depending on one’s theoretical perspective, responsible leadership can be defined in multiple, somewhat disparate ways. We use the terms strategist versus integrator to characterize the most common delineation of responsible leader orientations. While the strategist orientation implies the planning and use of corporate social responsibility initiatives for the direct targeting of return on investment, the integrator orientation involves senior leaders’ use of corporate social responsibility to serve the interests of a range of corporate stakeholders. Although a divergence of opinion is expressed in our letters, we concur in our conclusion that more research is necessary to better understand these diverse orientations and their effects on organizations.

We consider the utility of two contrasting theoretical perspectives in explaining how laissez‐faire formal leaders and team member motivation to lead (MTL) influences informal leadership and team task performance. The first perspective, functional leadership theory, is the dominant lens used currently to understand informal leadership. However, we suggest that social learning theory offers a compelling alternative account. In a multiwave survey study of 344 members of 72 work teams, we find support for the social learning theory predictions that laissez‐faire formal leaders are perceived by team members to engage in less modeling of effective leadership and as a result are negatively associated with informal leadership and team task performance. We do not find support for the functional leadership theory predictions that laissez‐faire formal leaders are positively associated with team members’ informal leadership and team task performance, which would be due to an increased perceived need for leadership. The social learning effects are stronger for teams that are lower in member MTL and weaker for teams that are higher in member MTL. These results suggest social learning theory may be preferable to functional leadership theory for understanding informal leadership in teams.

Although the negative effects of abusive supervision are well documented, less is known about the individual differences that drive supervisors to be abusive. We use a self‐control perspective to understand the unique roles of both psychological and neurological characteristics of supervisors in the prediction of abusive behavior. Specifically, we find a positive relationship between narcissism and abusive supervision, whereas political skill and intrinsic neurological connectivity in executive control regions of the brain negatively relate to abusive supervision. Our results further show that the relationship between narcissism and abusive supervision diminishes for those who are strong in terms of political skill. In addition, neurological executive control moderates the relationship between political skill and abusive behavior. When connectivity in executive control regions of the brain is lower, political skill becomes a more important factor in reducing the display of abusive behavior. Overall, we demonstrate how combinations of characteristics (both psychological and neurological) can provide a more in‐depth understanding of the emergence of abusive supervision.